The invention relates to a fluidized-bed reactor, in particular a reactor with indirect heating, preferably for the pyrolytic treatment of a starting material, especially hydrocarboncontaining wastes with a high content of polymeric organic substances, such as scrap rubber, old tires and/or plastic wastes, including a reactor vessel having a substantially vertical circumferential wall defining an interior of the vessel preferably having a circular cross-section and having an array of fluidizing-gas blow orifices for blowing a fluidizing gas into a fluidized-bed material, the fluidizing gas preferably being formed at least partially of pyrolysis gas produced during pyrolysis, the fluidized-bed material preferably being selected from the group consisting of sand, alumina, coke, soot and the like, the blow orifices defining a downward-pointing blowing direction and preferably being provided on inner ends of fluidizing-gas feed pipes.
For many applications in fluidized-bed reactors, in particular in the pyrolytic treatment of wastes having a high hydrocarbon content, such as scrap rubber or plastic wastes, the technique described in German Patent No. DE-PS 26 58 371, which has a downward-pointing blowing-in direction of the fluidizing gas, has proven very suitable. In order to blow in gas, fluidizing-gas feed pipes were used which extend into the part of the interior of the reactor intended for forming the fluidized bed, preferably in such a way that the feed pipes end in end sections which are bent off downwards. In operation, these devices which serve to introduce the fluidizing gas from above divided the fluidized bed into individual free partial cross-sections, each of which only took up a small fraction of the total free cross-sectional area of the fluidized-bed region. This caused difficulties in the processing of starting material which contained relatively large, non-pyrolyzable constituents, for example wire inserts of car tires. Moreover, the feed pipes located in the fluidized bed made it difficult to generate a rotary motion of the fluidized bed which is advantageous for many applications, and generally made it difficult to establish uniform flow conditions in the fluidized bed across the entire cross-section of the interior of the reactor.